The Campus

March 30th, 2009. Chemistry Professor Emeritus Neil McKelvie once again flawlessly performs an utterly copacetic repertoire of classical piano compositions in front of an immersed audience.

Dr. McKelvie, now 78 years old, politely warns his audience before resuming that he hasn't quite convalesced after having spent the past three days in bed.

Eo ipso, he had been restrained from practicing until a few hours before the scheduled time of the recital. Nevertheless, the performance was marvelous. One can't help but wonder how much more dazzling he might have been if he hadn't been mildly ill the day before.

McKelvie is, beyond any doubt, the epitome of a virtuoso. His selected repertoire is rich in content, and after delving through some of the available transcriptions one discovers how infrequent they are in the midst of current popular performers. We may not get to hear them in recital again anytime soon.

The first composition performed is Henry Purcell's "Tocatta" (1659-1695). It is amongst the great baroque opuses and, as McKelvie points out upon commencing this chef-d'oeuvre, it is approximately 300 years old. This is something one rarely sees at Shepard Hall piano recitals; McKelvie gives a little history of each of the pieces he performs, associating them with an event in the composer's life and turning each into melodic poems and bringing the pieces to life.

Although emotionally pent-up whilst performing Franz Shubert's (1797-1828) "Adagio in C minor", McKelvie is just warming up. One realizes this as he raises his left wrist to sight level, glimpsing at his analog watch in the middle of an adagio. His dynamics were impeccable throughout, along with his timbre intonations. The "Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel" written by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) is a tough morceau to pull off being that this is a piece of massive scope that entails some showmanship; McKelvie's rendition is a fair one. Dr. McKelvie's dexterity is readily conspicuous however. Not surprising since he studied at London's Royal Academy of Music under the tutelage of Manuel Frankel, an icon in classical music academe.

One of my former piano teachers, after consistently performing faultlessly for her mentor at Juilliard, felt inclined to play in front of a real audience, feeling that she had achieved considerate pianistic maturity. Her mentor's immediate reply left her dumbfounded however; "Hiejae, you played this very well, you didn't miss a single note, but what was your message?" This is what differentiates the great pianists from normal piano players. The ability to play from the heart is the strenuous part in proficient pianistic adeptness. Dr. Neil McKelvie executed an amazing repertoire with all the innate sentiments one can possibly expect from a virtuoso of his caliber. Dr. McKelvie, please never stop playing!

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